Teta Isibo, an ambitious young entrepreneur, won the Banque Populaire Entrepreneurship Award and the Meet the Lions national competition in Rwanda last year during Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) for her insightful perspective and creation of the brand Inzuki Designs.
The REAL Business Accelerator (RBA) and the Meet the Lions competition in Rwanda was organized and executed by Educat, a Danish organization based in Kigali working to enable change makers in Rwanda to create positive change for themselves, their community and globally.
Educat creatively hosted a week-long accelerator program during GEW, which culminated in a pitch competition that partnered with the Meet the Lions efforts. The REAL Business Accelerator (RBA)brought together 10 high-potential Rwandan entrepreneurs to convert a brilliant idea into action and kick-start their business. The accelerator consisted of training sessions, coaching, legal advice and budget support as well as ICT support. These were conducted by experts in their fields from all around Rwanda bringing a number of organizations together to take these entrepreneurs to the next level. Meet the Lions is a competition focused on discovering potential entrepreneurs in Africa and is a featured activity of GEW.
In addition to winning the Meet the Lions Competition, Teta received the REAL Banque Populaire Entrepreneurship Award. With the support of Educat’s sponsors including KLM, the Royal Dutch Airlines, and Banque Populaire de Rwanda, they were able to put together a competitive awards package including a cash prize of 2 million Rwandan Francs, 5 months of professional mentorship, and office space at the REAL Centre-incubator.
As the winner of the 2012 REAL Business Accelerator and Meet the Lions, the founder of Inzuki Designs, Isibo has created a dynamic young Rwandan brand specializing in jewelry, accessory and interior decors. Isibo’s design concept demonstrates a harmonious blend of contemporary elements and local craftsmanship.
Inspired by her passion to design and the need to take challenges, Isibo believes that her business has the potential to expand beyond Rwanda and Africa’s borders. She said that the media exposure her company gained through the competition helped market her business to the general public.
“It helped me expand my business network as I met a lot of fellow entrepreneurs in different fields and other key stakeholders in entrepreneurship/business,” Isibo said, “I got a lot of advice from the different mentors, fellow entrepreneurs, the judges etc. which went a long way in helping me improve my business.”
The accelerator has also equipped Isibo with a lot of professional skills. “The classes helped improve on my business skills - strategic planning, marketing etc.,” she said. Meanwhile, the welfare her company brings to the community goes far beyond itself. “My business works with cooperatives of artisans and therefore has potential to create work opportunities for a large number of communities as we expand.”
Isibo is currently working on expanding her brand presence by setting up her online store to cater for a global market, starting with North America, and also by looking for stores throughout the world interested in stocking her designs.
The secret of Isibo’s success lies in many aspects and she’d love to share her experience with other ambitious entrepreneurs: “I think anybody [who] wanted to start a business should have a PHD. Only in this case, P stands for passion, H for hunger and D for discipline. You need to be passionate about what you are doing. You need to have the hunger to succeed, and you need to have the discipline and the drive that’ necessary to push it toward you,” Isibo said.
The Babson Rwanda Entrepreneurship Center (BREC) have been the national hosts of Global Entrepreneurship Week in Rwanda since 2011. Since then, it has worked to advance entrepreneurship in Rwanda working with 50 partners that hosted 70 events that reached nearly 20,000 people.